ROCKFORD — The Catholic Diocese of Rockford is nearly half Hispanic, with more than two-thirds of its members living in Kane and McHenry counties.

Spanish-speaking people living on Chicago’s fringe are part of a demographic shift that’s reshaping not only the diocese, but the country.

“That’s been one of the great joys, to have been to a number of parishes that have strong Hispanic elements and even be able to say Mass with them,” Bishop David J. Malloy, who speaks Spanish, told a press briefing Wednesday.

Malloy met reporters in advance of the one-year anniversary of his May 14 installation as leader of a diocese that serves 390,476 Catholics in 11 northern Illinois counties, an area larger than Connecticut.

Malloy will spend much of this month at high school graduations. He said he spent his first year meeting priests and parishioners.

This past year he’s ordained two men as priests, buried four priests, celebrated confirmations at 45 parishes and is “getting to know some of those back roads in the diocese.”

The bishop is concerned about declining church attendance.

A January report by diocesan researchers found that attendance jumped after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks but has declined in nine of the past 11 years.

About 41 percent of the diocese’s registered Catholics were present during the annual 2012 count at Sunday liturgies in October. Attendance since 2001 is down 11.4 percent.

“The numbers are reflective not just of Catholics, but consistent with decreasing numbers within denominations and churches outside of our own,” he said.

But Hispanic Catholics have eased the attendance drop, which has been also been affected by smaller families the past several decades.

Parishes where at least 25 percent of attendees came to Spanish-language Masses grew considerably more than those with fewer Hispanic members, according to the report: “The typical English Mass fills 36 percent of a church’s seating capacity while the typical Spanish Mass fills 63 percent of the capacity.”

Malloy said inspiring the faithful to celebrate the liturgy, which to Catholics is the “heart” of the church, means evangelizing in a new way.

“One of the things we need in the faith is a personal presence, a personal outreach in the faith.”